The
Xavier Zubiri Foundation of North America

Annual Report,
1999

I. Introduction

The Xavier Zubiri Foundation of North America is pleased
to present this second annual report.The Foundation was established in 1997 to promote and disseminate Zubiri’s
ideas and philosophy, primarily in North America and the English-speaking
world. However, there has been considerable interest shown in the Foundation by
scholars and others from South America as well; so the Foundation works with
them too.The Foundation also
cooperates with the Fundación Xavier Zubiri in Madrid.The calendar year 1999, the third year of
the Foundation’s existence, has been very active and has witnessed many
exciting developments.Interest in
Zubiri in the United States continues to grow, albeit slowly; those who have contacted
the Foundation are scattered throughout the country.The Foundation’s extensive Web site has been the key to establishing
contact with such persons, and with interested people as far away as Japan, the
Philippines, and Australia, as well as throughout Central and South
America.

II. Objectives of the Foundation

The Foundation was created with the following
objectives:

·Publish
and distribute translations of Zubiri's works.

·Serve
as a resource center for research and study of Zubiri.

·Sponsor
seminars on Zubiri, and sessions on Zubiri at major conferences .

·Allow scholars studying Zubiri to exchange ideas,
papers, and other research material.

·When resources permit, sponsor established scholars to
study Zubiri in Madrid, and fellowships for graduate students interested in
doing theses and dissertations on Zubiri.

·Maintain
a liaison with the Fundación Xavier Zubiri in Madrid and coordinate North
American activities with those in Spain and elsewhere in the world.

·Ensure
accurate interpretations of Zubiri’s works, and thwart efforts to use Zubiri’s
name or philosophy to advance ungrounded political, religious, or other
agendas.

During 1999, the Foundation has concentrated
primarily on publishing works by and about Zubiri.The Xavier Zubiri Review,
a yearly periodical devoted to articles about Zubiri’s philosophy and related
topics, was launched with volume I, published in January.This volume contained all of the papers on
Zubiri presented at the XX World Congress of Philosophy, a total of eight.Volume II of the Review, containing seven papers, but about 50% longer than volume
I, was published in late December.Printed versions of both volumes were mailed to authors and selected
other scholars and interested persons.Electronic versions of the Review
are available on the Foundation’s web site, where they can be either read
directly on the computer screen, or downloaded and printed using the Adobe
Acrobat Reader.

III. Major Accomplishments and Milestones

During
1999, the Foundation has fulfilled its objectives by accomplishing the
following goals:

·Launching of the Xavier
Zubiri Review, a yearly periodical devoted to articles about Zubiri’s
philosophy and related topics.Volume I
was published in January.This volume
contained all of the papers on Zubiri presented at the XX World Congress of
Philosophy, a total of eight.

·Volume II of the Review,
containing seven papers, but about 50% longer than volume I, was published in
December.Printed versions of both
volumes were mailed to authors and selected other scholars and interested
persons.Electronic versions of the Review are available on the Foundation’s
web site, where they can be either read directly on the computer screen, or
downloaded and printed using the Adobe Acrobat Reader.

·Obtained ISBN prefix and numbers for Foundation
publications.

·Thomas Fowler’s translation of Inteligencia sentiente, Zubiri’s magnum opus, was published by the Foundation in May.Printed copies are available, and the entire
text is available on the Foundation’s web site.At the present time, the original printing is nearly exhausted,
and a new printing will be required in 2000.

·Continued development and updating of the Foundation’s
web site devoted to Zubiri.This is currently
by far the largest and most comprehensive Zubiri web site on the Internet.It has over 3,000 pages of information in
various categories, and is continually being expanded.This has consumed the bulk of the
Foundation’s effort since its inception, but is an invaluable resource for
Zubiri scholars worldwide, especially insofar as it makes available works
published in journals which are difficult or impossible to obtain outside of
their country of origin. The complete “official” Zubiri bibliography, consisting
of Rafael Lazcano’s original compilation, supplemented by the Fundación Xavier
Zubiri in Madrid, and our Foundation, continues to grow.Many articles and books are hyperlinked to
the Bibliography. The Foundation wishes to thank Board of Directors member Dr.
Jeffrey Mirus for his invaluable help with the Web site, as well as for hosting
it gratis on his organization’s
server.

·Continuation of the Foundation’s cooperative effort
with the Seminario “Redemptoris Mater” in Brasilia to staff courses on Zubiri.To date, the Foundation has arranged for six
scholars to give courses at the Seminario.Two more are currently scheduled for the year 2000.

·Facilitation of communication among Zubiri scholars
worldwide via the Directory of Zubiri scholars on the Internet site.This has proved to be one of the most useful
features of the web site.

·Establishment of connections with other organizations
in order to promote the study of Zubiri.These include other web sites, and the International Academy of Philosophy
in Leichtenstein.

·Set up the first Xavier Zubiri Foundation of North
America office, in part of President Fowler’s garage (in the great American
tradition of first-office-in-the-garage).This office contains a small library, Foundation files, copies of books
and journals for sale, computer and fax equipment.

·On-line publication of one doctoral dissertation and
one Master’s thesis on Zubiri.

IV.
Projects Underway

·Translation of several major works, including Zubiri’s
theology trilogy: El hombre y Dios, El problema filosófico de la historia de las
religiones, and El Cristianismo. Also being translated are Cinco lecciones de filosofía, and La estructura dinámica de la realidad.Publication of the translation of El hombre y Dios, with the title, Man and God, is expected in 2000.

·Staffing of Brasilia seminary courses.

·Development of Zubiri glossary on the Internet site.

·Scanning of Zubiri texts and articles about Zubiri, for
addition to the Web site.

·Publication of Volume 3 of The Xavier Zubiri Review.

·Implementation of an improved way to bind books for
small press runs.To date, Foundation
publications have been printed and comb bound by Kinko’s.There is available a new machine which can
create bindings similar to the perfect bindings used by commercial printers.This machine can also do a type of cloth
binding (though pages are glued, not sewn in signatures).We will be experimenting with this method.If successful, it will be used for Man
and God, reprinting of Sentient Intelligence, and future volumes of The
Xavier Zubiri Review.

V. Goals for 2000

The
goals for 2000 include the following:

·Raising of additional funds, and possibly funding from
a continuing source with interest in Zubiri.

·Listing of the Foundation’s telephone number in the
Foundation’s name.(Not currently done
to save money).

·Publication of Man and God and possibly one
other major translation.

·Further expansion of web site.

·Development of Zubiri glossary.

·Establishment of further links with our Internet site,
and an entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

·Creation of an index to the Web site, to facilitate
searches.This will require editing of
most existing HTML documents on the site to ensure a consistent representation
of words with accent marks.An MS Word
macro has been created to facilitate this process.All accent marks in HTML documents are being converted from
standard HTML format to extended ASCII characters.

VI. Problems encountered

The original legal counsel for the Foundation, Mr. Joseph
Fletcher, told the Foundation that it was not required to file income tax
reports with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) unless its income was $25,000
or more.Unfortunately, this turned out
to be erroneous advice, and as a result, the Foundation had to file IRS form 990PF
for 1997 and 1998, and post appropriate legal notices.Because the 990PF form had not been filed in
1998, there was a penalty assessed by the IRS against the Foundation for
$137.50, which the president paid out of his own funds so as not to encumber the
organization.This problem will not
recur in the future.

Fund raising continues to be a difficult problem.Foundations have so far not proved to be a
fruitful source, though many remain to be asked.There is enormous competition for funding now, and Zubiri’s name
is not well enough known to elicit much response.Advertisements on the web site have brought in no money, and
direct mail solicitation is extremely unlikely to be successful either, both
because the market is already saturated, and because few in the U.S. have heard
of Zubiri.It appears that the
Foundation is the type of organization that will have to be funded by a few
“angels”, whether individual (persons interested in making Zubiri better known
in the U.S.) or corporate.At the
present time, the Foundation has obtained a copy of the book, Foundation Guide for Religious Grant Seekers,
and has ordered a copy of a related book, Catholic
Funding Guide: A Directory.These
will be searched for possible donors.To date, funds for the Foundation have come almost exclusively from
donations by the President and one of the board members.

Unfortunately, one of the major goals of the Foundation,
granting of scholarships and fellowships to those interested in the study of
Zubiri, cannot begin until a reliable source of funding at a fairly high level
is achieved.The Foundation will also
continue to look for possible individual donors, e.g., wealthy persons of
Basque extraction, who would like to see Zubiri become better known.The specific expenditures of the Foundation
to date are summarized in Appendix A.Most of the expenses in 1999 were to cover publication and mailing
costs, and the situation is expected to be the same in 2000.

The Foundation continues to keep its operating expenses
to a bare minimum.It rents no office
space, has little in the way of equipment (an answering machine, a fax machine,
and a bookcase), pays no salaries, and as pointed out earlier, its web site is
graciously hosted at no charge by board member Dr. Jeffrey Mirus.A friend of the Foundation has indicated
that he may be able to interest a major university press in publishing a series
of Zubiri translations.This would
occur some years from now, however, if at all.In the meantime, the publish-on-demand method will continue to be used.

VII. Financial Summary

For 1999, contributions and expenditures for the
Foundation are as follows:

Total Donations:$2,045.00

Receipts from
sales of books85.00

Total income:$2,130.00

Expenditures:

Legal and Official$36.50

Internet35.00

Office supplies, equipment,
postage344.65

Printing1,146.26

Travel expenses352.97

Total expenditures:$2,119.29

Cash on hand as of 1 January 2000:$100.66

Officers of the Foundation:

President:Dr. Thomas B. Fowler

Secretary/Treasurer: Dr. Maika Will Fowler

Board of Directors of the Foundation:

Dr. Nelson Orringer, Professor of Spanish Philosophy and Literature, University of
Connecticut